Poison reaches them, government does not

Suicides by consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total
autopsies performed at a sub-district hospital in interior Vidarbha, Maharashtra.
"Pesticide could
be bought from any Krishi Kendra. But for
medicine, they've to walk miles before they could get it," says one health official.
Jaideep Hardikar
reports.

Yavatmal, Maharashtra - He was too young to die. But Ayya Baheru Atram, 28, was sure he could not get
out of debts in this life. So, the Kolam tribal farmer in the remote Dubhati
village, in south Yavatmal's Zari Jamni block, hung himself from a tree along
his farm on February 8, leaving a shattered Suman, his wife, and two young kids
 Sunanda and Charandas, to face the Sahukars.

A few miles from this village, two sisters are yet to come to terms with the
suicide of their father, Ganpat Naitam, in Shibla. Pranita, among the two, is
remorseful to say the least. It was the worries of her marriage that did her
father in. Ganpat had run out of patience, and money. Cotton prices did not give
any breather. He ended his life in September, last, when he saw no chance to
fish himself out of the muddle. He consumed poison  that is pesticide. But
before closing his eyes, he told Pranita of his debts.

At 53 per 100,000, the suicide mortality rate (SMR) for male farmers in Maharashtra is nearly four times the national average for all males.

Series by Jaideep Hardikar

Both, Atram and Naitam, figure in the logbook maintained by the sub-district
hospital at Pandharkawda of the post-mortem cases. Poison and hanging  the two
modes leave behind all other causes for death going by the post-mortem logbook
here. Also, it shows, a dramatic rise in the number of poisoning and hanging
cases. So much so, that poison cases have become synonymous with farmers'
suicides across Yavatmal.

"An overwhelming number of poison cases that come for post-mortem are farmers,"
reveals Dr Rajesh Dhatrak, in-charge of sub-district hospital. Look at the
trend: Suicides by consuming poison contribute to over two-thirds of the total
autopsies performed here. Elsewhere too, the trend is similar. "These cases
increase in the period of October-January," notes Dr Dhatrak. In those months in
2003-04, this hospital saw 23 cases of poisoning. It went up to 39 last year,
and 48 this year, that is 2005-06.

Adds Dr S D Dhale, a health official in Ghatanji: Suicide's instant source is available in the
market easily. "Pesticide could be bought from any Krishi Kendra. But for
medicine, they've to walk miles before they could get it," he says.

In September last, the state government issued instructions to the post-mortem
centers to run round the clock, even in the nights. They do now.

Meanwhile a new study stirs up the issue with fresh data. The Indira Gandhi
Institute for Development Research, Mumbai, which looked at the agrarian
distress in Yavatmal, Washim and Wardha districts, has a devastating finding on
the state's suicide mortality rate or SMR. A team of researchers also studied
the larger trends of suicides in Maharashtra.

"The SMR (suicides per 100,000 population) for male farmers," it says, "trebled
from 17 in 1995 to 53 in 2004." That was the period when farm suicides grew
appallingly. In contrast, adds the report, for overall males in the state, it
stabilized at a level of 20 or 21 after 2001. Concurrently, the SMR for women
actually fell after 1999.

New research

The Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research's report on suicides
is available online.
Pages 31 to 45 refer to mortality rates among farmers.

Evidently, the farmers are in for trouble, having taken a stick on many
fronts. As the report indicates, farmers' suicides have actually pushed up the
state's overall SMR level. "In 2001," the study states, "age-adjusted SMR for
males was 20.6 in Maharashtra as compared to India's 14.0."

So, at 53, the SMR for male farmers is nearly four times the national average
for all males. In the crisis-ridden district like Amravati, the SMR for male
farmers shot up to 140 in 2004, ten times the national average and seven times
the state's average for all males.

Over two-thirds of the 111 suicide cases that the study looked at were of farmers
less than 50 years old. Close to 60% of them had been farmers for over ten years, two in five
had completed their matriculation, and four in every five suicides were deaths
by poisoning. That is, by consuming pesticide.

Jaideep Hardikar29 March 2006

Jaideep Hardikar is a Nagpur based journalist. He won a 2005 scholarship to research the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha from the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust, New Delhi. He has also been a recipient of several national media fellowships and was the winner of the 2003 Sanskriti award from Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi.

Sushant Gupta
The whole issue of farmer subsidy is nothing but a means by the Govt or political parties to control and manipulate votes. The money which is spent in so called subsidies should be spent on improving the infrastructure of rural India, in truly connecting them with the best of information and resources. Only when that happens will the issue of suicides begin to get resolved. Otherwise today it is Kapas farmers, tomorrow it will be chilli and so on and so forth.
I run a 20 acre farm in Mansar, Vidarbha and have realized how difficult it must be for the farmers to make ends meet. It is ironical that the agriculture implements available in villages are costlier then they are in nearby town ? There is no irrigation system whatsoever. Even on a 20 acre farm we find it difficult to make ends meet. Then how can a poor farmer with very limited resources ever run a profitable venture without a significant improvement in infrastructure available to them.

April 07 2006, 7:37 AM ·
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